The Philippines ranked 97th out of 168 countries in the Social Progress Index (SPI) which measures countries social performance.
This is a notch higher in the previous ranking of 163 countries.
While the country done well in areas such as environmental quality (71.16) and access to advanced education (56.44) and is overperforming in these categories compared to countries of similar GDP per capita, it has, however, underperformed in the area of personal safety (50.81), scoring poorly in these three indicators: perceived criminality, political killings and torture, and deaths from interpersonal violence.
The Philippines can also improve on health and wellness (49.26), where it is underperforming in the following indicators: premature deaths from non-communicable diseases, and equal access to quality healthcare.
The 2021 SPI is compiled by the Social Progress Imperative, a United States-based nonprofit, with the support of Deloitte. The report was released in the last quarter of last year.
The Philippines is ahead of Cambodia (128), Myanmar (117), and Laos (145) but is outperformed by Singapore (30), Malaysia (51), Thailand (71), Vietnam (78), and Indonesia (94).
The Philippines’ performance in its scorecard is relative to 15 countries of similar GDP per capita: Bolivia, Guatemala, El Salvador, Eswatini, Vietnam, Laos, Morocco, Jamaica, Namibia, Uzbekistan, Angola, Jordan, Cabo Verde, Iraq, India.
Eric Landicho, managing partner and chief executive officer of Deloitte Philippines, said the pandemic exposed the weaknesses in the country’s social safety nets.
